1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an orientation determining system, and more particularly relates to a system for determining the orientation of a device with respect to an object surface.
2. Description of the Prior Art
During laser material processing, it is often necessary to maintain not only the distance from the workpiece, but also the orientation of the cutting head with respect to the workpiece. A typical example of this situation is cutting with a laser beam, where usually it is best to have the focussed laser beam at a fixed distance and the axis of the laser beam normal to the workpiece surface during the cutting operation.
However, there are no systems currently available and known to this inventor that will automatically determine the orientation of the device with respect to the workpiece surface.
There, of course, does exist several systems which determine the perpendicular distance from the workpiece. One such system uses a laser diode for emitting a laser beam. The laser beam from it passes through projection lens. When the laser beam hits workpiece, it forms a spot. A focussing lens projects the image of this spot to position sensor (photo-detector). This sensor can be calibrated to give a reference voltage when itself is at a fixed distance (reference distance) from the workpiece. When the distance of the workpiece from the sensor changes the output thereof changes to a value related to the deviation from the reference distance.